Taylor Swift Has Made Her First-Ever Political Endorsements

Taylor Swiftmade the biggest political statement of her career thus far over the weekend, endorsing Phil Bredesen, the Democratic candidate for Senate in her home state of Tennessee.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” she wrote in an Instagram post Sunday night, almost certainly in response to criticisms about her silence during the 2016 presidential election.

Last year, Swift triumphed in a high-profile sexual assault case against a Colorado DJ whom she accused of groping her, but that victory was also marred by questions about why she hadn’t spoken out about the multiple allegations of sexual assault made against then-candidate Trump during the 2016 election. Swift capped off 2017 by appearing on Time’s Person of the Year cover as one of “The Silence Breakers” who had launched the ongoing conversation on sexual misconduct across industries, but her political silence once again became a point of controversy.

Earlier this year, Swift also made a rare political statement in support of gun control and the March For Our Lives movement, but this new post marks the first time she has ever endorsed a political candidate in her decade-long career.

“As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry,” Swift wrote of Blackburn, the Republican Congresswoman now running for Senate in Tennessee. “These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives.”

Swift closes off her post with a reminder that Oct. 9 is the last day to register to vote in Tennessee, and links to Vote.org, where you’ll find voter registration deadlines for all the state elections coming up in the forthcoming midterms.

A major part of Swift’s appeal as a pop star has been her intimate—if sometimes too insular—relationship with her fans, and so it makes sense that, unlike her superstar counterparts, she would make her first political endorsement in a state election, rather than a national one.

It’s worth noting, however, that Bredesen was one of the few Democrats to come out in support of confirming accused sexual assaulter Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, saying that the allegations “didn’t rise to the level” of disqualifying him for the seat. Swift never explicitly addresses Bredesen’s comments on Kavanaugh in her post, although she does leave fans with a note of advice.

“Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values. For a lot of us, we may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100% on every issue, but we have to vote anyway,”

This might be a fairly risk-averse statement coming at a critical moment in American politics, but it’s good to know that there’s still a real, engaged person behind all the petty superstar squabbles.